


The Plague of East Village

by nimroid



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drug Addiction, M/M, Violence, tags will be added as the story goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 14:01:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1860675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimroid/pseuds/nimroid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lonely addict is flung head first into the dangerous world of drug crime, violence and sex deep within the dangers of East Village, New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have posted this before at another site with another pairing.

It seemed to me that drugs were the only scapegoat I could ever provide when explaining my mistakes to the people who had the courage to ask me about them. Why weren't you at school? All I could say was that I had been smoking too much weed. Why were you late for work? Alcohol. Where have you been for the last four days? That was easy, LSD and contins. How come I haven't seen you in a month? Cocaine.

Eventually, I drove these people that loved me out and far away from my life. To be honest, I didn't even know why they cared about me in the first place. It's not liked I showed any of them compassion or any sign of mutual feeling. Intervention was not among any of my options. Trust I'd been through a lot of situations where people had forced me to become acquainted with the fact that indeed, I had a drug problem. I'd always sit there and listen to them tell me how I'd eventually end up destroying my life, but I wouldn't say anything. They knew nothing of self destruction. Not like I did.

So then I became the therapist they needed. They would vent about how horrible they felt about me, or how horrible they felt around me, just looking at my sunken eyes. Especially on those days when I'd drag myself into work smelling worse than a mound of rotting dead and looking as good as a drowned rat. The night before I may have gone on a drug binge. I wasn't sure which kind of drug, but it must have been a hefty dose. I usually didn't remember the day before anyway. My memories slipped through me like my mind was filled with black holes. Sure, I could remember to pay insurance and shower. But I could never remember the meal I ate the previous day, or even the last time I left my apartment. 

These things were trivial to me anyway. I didn't need to know what I did the day before last, or how I felt last Saturday. I lived for the moment. Or rather, the moment I could get something inside of me. I lived for that second my pupils dilated and I could sit back and feel the world around me melt away. I could feel happy while I was alone. Ecstatic when I had not a reason.

Many interventional encounters had come to the conclusion that I was doing drugs to escape my own sad reality. It was true that I wanted to escape my surroundings without really going anywhere, but my life wasn't sad. I had an apartment, a working television, phone connection and a car that cost thirty dollars to fill with gas for the at least a week. That was all I really needed. That, and a sack of cocaine.

I'd been fired from many jobs for being strung out. The only people that would actually hire me were old friends of my mom's that knew me since before I'd even hit puberty. Some of my mom's college friends who had started their own businesses offered me jobs. The reason for that, at least what I thought of it, was because they wanted to get with my mom. She was never a monogamous woman either way, so the chances of them getting it on with my mom were pretty good. The people that hired me managed to keep me around as long as they could until they got so sick of me blacking out on the job that they were forced to let me go. They advised AA meetings, or drug counseling or good old fashioned rehab, but I was always just too coked up or cracked out to actually get myself there.

During the weeks I was out of work, I'd spend most of my time caged within my dingy little top floor apartment in East Village, Manhattan. It was a diverse area of New York where no matter what kind of person you were, you'd fit in somewhere. There was the honorable gay community with their boy bars and fancy little costume ball social gatherings. The thug community where you had to drive slow along the street with your head down, or just take the highway around the five or six blocks so you wouldn't risk being potentially shot at. There were the suburbs and the west end, shopping and performance theatres and museums. Art conventions went on regularly. It was a strange bit of New York where you could take your kids shopping, or go buy a hit of acid or twenty.

After purchase, I would use up my stash of powder in just a couple of short days. I sat myself down on the couch in front of the TV and the glass coffee table, select a fine chunk of cocaine, bust it up until it was fine like powdered sugar. Then I'd take a razor, or an expired library card and scrape up a couple of thin white lines. After I'd arranged a few of them, I'd cut a straw or, if I was feeling classy I'd use a rolled up bill and snort it all into my nostrils, up into my head and down my throat like bitter medicine. This would go nice and quick, then I'd lay back on my sofa and let the pure rush infuse into my brain. I couldn't give up this wonderful feeling. Not for any job in the world.

Before getting fired from my job at a vintage clothing store, I'd went out and bought myself a fat chunk of pure paper white cocaine. About a quarter. On the street I could find grams of coke ranging from forty to seventy dollars, depending on potency. But I decided to treat myself and spent close to two thousand dollars on this personal boulder. It had lasted me quite a while until my boss Victor told me it was time for me to find a different job, get help or stop snorting lines in the back on my breaks. I decided I'd get help. 

The help of a massive amount of cocaine in my system. It was enough to make me forget that I lost my job, again and also that I would have to find another one in the near future.

Two months I spent locked up in my apartment. I had about a thousand dollars in my bank account to help me slip into another month of mass drug consumption and joblessness.

I thought I was going to survive just fine until one day I called my dealer. His name was Xavier, but people on the street called him Tabs and only that. He was my only friend, if any friend at all. We'd known each other since the beginning of high school and even back then he was dealing me sacks of weed and the occasional ounce of mushrooms if my mom gave me some extra money. I might not have known where that money came from, but now I knew it was probably from the many guys she had coming over everyday. Some of them would ignore me completely, act like I was a fly on the wall, and others would think it was okay to mess up my hair and call me 'sport' or 'kiddo'. Fuck, whatever. At least their hard earned cash fueled my passion for drugs at an early age.

"Yo." Tabs answered abruptly.

"Hey Tabs, what's up? It's Liam." I said to him.

"Yeah I know that, you think I don't have your number on my celly?"

I had to chuckle. "Alright, well yeah. I need you to hook me up with a few G's dude."

"Can't." He said. Clear as glacier water.

"W-What, why not?" I asked, feeling my throat constricting in shock. I had never heard him turn anyone down before. Especially not me.

"Cops got me on a run. I ain't even supposed to be answerin' my celly right now. I only did 'cause I knew it was you." Tabs revealed to me.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, frustrated and now out of ideas. It didn't help when I only had one of them though. I didn't know anyone else that could get me deals like Tabs could. He had always been there for me. I never even bothered getting to know anybody else. "Well, what am I supposed to do then?"

"Listen, I have this number I'll give you. Now this guy ain't no player. He don't deal out on the streets really, he sells his shit right from home okay, it's some premium shit. And you gotta be tight with this guy to pick up. If you call him and tell him Tabs gave you the number he'll probably sell to you, ain't makin' no promises though, the guys sketchin' or some shit. But listen, you can't give out this number okay, it's a private number. Strictly dealers who got their shit together." Tabs lectured me, as though I didn't understand the tight knit network of the New York drug industry.

"Okay, okay. Don't give out his number, okay I got it." I urged my friend.

"Kay, get a piece of paper ready cause I'm only sayin' this number once." Tabs said.

I rushed to find a pen and got ready to scrawl the number onto the ink of a pizza flyer. Tabs told it to me and I scribbled it down as I listened carefully.

"Kay listen dawg, I gotta let you go now, okay. You probably won't be hearin' from me anytime soon so take care."

"Wait! What's this guy's name?" I asked in a hurry.

"Plague."

"Plague? That's a fuckin' stupid name for a drug deal-"

Then Tabs hung up. That was the last time I ever heard from my closest, and what I liked to think was my dearest friend. I looked down at the number he gave me and sighed. I really hoped the dude Tabs directed me to was as legit as he was. I couldn't handle having to fuck around with a gang of mutual dealers that all sold the same shit.

I picked my phone up and held it to my ear using my shoulder. I dialed the number, hung up twice and then finally got up the right amount of nerve to let the phone actually ring. At the time, I didn't think the call was going to hold any other sort of significance besides arranging a time and a place to pick up some coke. But, evidently it did. Because now, I'm not just a lonely drug addict that rails coke in my small apartment anymore. I'm East Village's top dealer, head of the drug chain, and everybody is buying off of me.


	2. Chapter 2

The phone was answered, but nothing was said on the other line. I could only assume it was this guy 'Plague' that Tabs had told me about. It was clear the person listening to my breathing wasn't going to say anything until I did. 

"Hi, uh... um, is this... Plague?" I was reluctant to utter the street name.

"Yeah. Who's this?" A lisped voice asked me.

I swallowed. "Um, Tabs gave me this number and told me you would hook me up since he's out of town."

There was total silence until I heard him clearing his throat. "Yeah?"

"So can you?" I asked.

"I don't know. How do you know Tabs?" He asked.

"We've known each other since high school. He's been my dealer since then." I felt like I was being fucking interrogated or some shit.

"Don't you have any other dealers?" He asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

"No, I always thought Tabs was going to be around." I said stupidly.

Another pause where all I could hear was breathing. "Okay. Come to my place. Building A, Two Hundred and Seventy on Fifty Third. Fourth floor. Code is Black Glass."

"Black Glass?" I repeated questioningly after this guy Plague hung up.

I got all my shit together including keys and drug money, put on my boots and left my apartment in a hurry. It was conscious to me that I should be going out to look for a job. I shouldn't be going to this strange person's house to spend my money on a chunk of blow that will last me but a week. Despite my realizations, I drove until I found Fifty Third in the middle of a cracked out part of the city that I rarely visited. I never had any business to attend to in that part of East Village, so it took me a little longer than I'd hoped.

All around there were thugs and hustlers taking up the sidewalks inside their intimidating and babbling groups. They wore their oversized sports jerseys to appear bigger than they must have been. Nobody that dealt and did drugs could maintain a weight that exceeded two hundred pounds. I myself was beginning to dwindle away because of inactivity. I used to be quite a fit guy, until I stopped caring about going to the gym.

I had never really been around this part of town. It was dirty, beat up and grey, littered with the filth of it's inhabitants. I couldn't say much more about my own area of town, except that there were rare shootings and a lot of artsy people to make the place look at least mildly respectable, or like it wasn't a subdivision of Manhattan. There was even an art gallery down the road from my building. But I was pretty sure the owner was a pothead anyway.

I worried over where to park my car so it didn't get broken into while I wasn't in it. Not that I had a lot of shit to be stolen, but I needed my car for driving places, naturally. Especially since Tabs wouldn't be around anymore and I'd most likely need a vehicle to make various drug runs. I was used to having Tabs come up to my apartment to give it to me and he'd leave with my money. It was practically routine. Sad that our customs had been changed so abruptly.

I pulled up around the building with the large capital 'A' on the front entrance, painted a dusty bronze and bolted into the brick. For a moment I'd forgotten what the guy had said. Fourth floor? Or fifth? Two hundred and something. Shit, my black hole memory had failed me as usual. Building A. Well I had to assume it was Building A because of the actual A. I just hoped it was the right Building A. 

When I got out of my car I made sure all four of the doors were locked, looked around to see nobody watching and then proceeded into the building. It was a grimy place with a lot of broken webbed glass and rusted door hinges. The tiles in the locker sized lobby were ripping themselves up off the foundation, revealing a gluey orange underneath. It smelled like cooking grease and old shoes in there. The scent of mouldy wet laundry and black marker graffiti adorned that hall like washable disease. I wondered why nobody had bothered to cure it. The black bold gang tags weren't a very homey touch. In short, the place looked like it would be crawling with drug dealers, crack heads, maybe even a few homeless people liked to call the small rickety bench a bed. I could picture it as though it were a screen before me.

This was East Village. A homeless man sleeping inside of an apartment building lobby was never a rare sight. Just like the gang tags became freckles, unnoticeable unless you took the time to look.

Apparently, the elevator was out of order, which was fine by me since I didn't even trust the decrepit thing anyway. It was one of those old fashioned ones that looked like a big steel cage with a heavy door that you had to pull shut yourself. A mobile prison cell. I imagined the irony of the thing breaking while someone was in it.

I took the stairs up to the fourth floor as I vaguely recalled the guy's words, still with a bit of mistrust in my recollection. I could never really be certain about my memory. But it had to be the fourth floor. There was no fifth. I walked down the narrow hallway, peering at the door numbers and tried remembering which one he said it was. Two hundred and seventy. It must have been. The door loomed at the end of the dim hallway.

I cleared my throat before knocking on the door. All I could think of was Black Glass as I waited. I wondered what the significance was. Black Glass. What had prompted this guy Plague to use Black Glass as a code word? I knew what Glass was. Crystal Meth, of course. But Black? I had no clue. I think it bothered me more than it should have.

I waited a few moments outside of the door, not even thinking about knocking again. You never know with dealers. They were tricky, and sketched out and one wrong move or impression could determine your entire future with them. I played it cool, cooler than when we were talking on the phone, even when I heard the clinking of metal locks.

The door was pulled open, but kept partially shut by a chained lock. "What?"

The guy didn't even look out the crack.

"Um..." I began, but stopped.

"What do you want?" He asked again.

"Black Glass?"

The door shut. Fuck. But hope was not lost as the last lock was taken off and the door opened for me. I took a few cautious steps inside and turned around to finally see this guy named 'Plague' that I had spoken to over the phone. He was tall, and pretty skinny. But not that unhealthy skinny of a strung out drug addict though. He hadn't the sunken dark eyed look, nor did he look very grungy, beat up, tired. He wasn't sporting the NY baseball cap with a long Sean John shirt, chains and baggy jeans. He didn't have young accident children running around. There were no dirty dishes on his living room table. He was lean and long, shirtless and tattooed. He wore a pair of tight black pants with a couple of studded belts and grey socks. This guy didn't even look like he deserved a street name. He looked like he should be at a Motley Crue concert.

At the same time I looked at him, he looked at me. Apparently, he was as confused by my appearance as I was by his. Maybe I didn't look the way he thought I would. He probably had the same expectations as I had. 

"You're Plague?" I asked, trying and failing to mask my disbelief.

"If that's what you wanna say." He said with a shrug as he walked into the open space that was his living room.

His place looked a lot like mine but a little bigger, whiter and the sun actually shone through the clear glass of the window above his couch. It came as a shock to me that his apartment looked unexpectedly acceptable, considering the state of the main floor, the death wish elevator and the area of town. Maybe I should stop stereotyping the drug dealers. He seemed to be well off, despite the poorly represented parts he lived in, completely unlike what I'd pictured.

"So tell me how you got my number again?" He asked me as he peered out the window onto the ground below.

"Oh, uh, Tabs gave it to me. Cops got him on the run or something so he can't sell to me anymore." I shrugged.

"So you know Tabs but no other dealers?" Plague inquired.

"Well yeah. I've known Tabs since we were teenagers. I didn't need anybody else."

"How sweet." Plague said.

I shifted my eyes, unable to reply to that. I just wanted to get my coke and get the fuck out of there. This guy was sketchy and asked way too many unnecessary questions.

"Tabs always did have shit with him. He's probably one of the only dealers around this place that actually had his shit together." Plague said, and I nodded. It was true. Tabs was the most reliable.

"So what do you need?" He asked, scratching the back of his head.

"A half quarter of white." I recited automatically, without having to think, since that was all I had really been thinking about. Besides the Black Glass thing and the fact that he wasn't anything like the minority drug dealers that were typically found around East Village.

He nodded, turned away from the window and went into the kitchen. I heard the hum of a freezer being opened. I wanted to look over and see what he was doing, but I decided it was better to just stay rooted where I was.

"Come here." He called. Never mind then.

I followed his path into the kitchen and went by the open freezer. When I took my first glance inside I saw no food. No frozen peas, toaster strudel. No ice packs. Instead, I saw bags of coke on the left. On the right there were large blue ziplock baggies busting at the seams with weed and on the door, fresh packs of stolen rigs. This guy was selling needles too. That meant he also sold Heroin. But I looked at his track lines on the inside of his elbows and there were no irritated spots. No scabs to voicelessly tell me he was an H junkie.

This Plague dude must have been running some serious type of illegal drug store if he was selling Heroin, White and Weed at the same time. I could only be curious as to what else this guy was slanging on the side. Usually, I heard of dealers selling weed at one time and then, if they were lucky enough, could start selling pills or mushrooms. Once in a while they could get some cocaine to sell. But cocaine was a little more personal. More on the expensive side. People didn't like to sell it because of how fast it went. 

I wasn't sure why, but the contents of that freezer made me feel on edge. I watched as Plague picked out a bag of cocaine from one of the piles and set it on the counter. He rummaged through one of the kitchen drawers and found a sharp and curved knife with tiny but lethal serrates, used for gutting fish. In this case, he was gutting me three and a half grams of fresh coke off a fair sized block. A block that would cost a man about four thousand dollars on the street. Once he had scraped off a few pieces, he reached into the cupboards above and pulled out a scale to weigh up the chunks. I couldn't say I wasn't impressed. This guy really did know his shit.

I watched as he weighed me up an exact count, sealed the rest inside of the bag and tossed it back into the freezer. I watched him file all the little bits into a white mound and then open up a coffee canister that sat right beside the fridge, atop the wooden counter. There was no coffee inside that can, but small bags of varying sizes instead. Dime bags, quarter bags, baggies printed with thug crowns or the number '4:20', happy faces and Batman logos, Playboy bunnies, bull dogs. Now that was what I called organization.

Plague swept the count into a quarter bag and sealed it off. But before he handed it over he gestured for my money. I pulled out my wallet, ready to hear his price.

"Four hundred." He said.

I had to look up skeptically, my eyebrow cocked like a gun ready to fire. 

"What!? Four hundred? I can get a quarter on the street for that price." I sounded absolutely appalled, but if he was going to try to get four hundred bucks out of me for an Eight-Ball, than he was sadly mistaken. I might not have known a lot of dealers, but I knew my shit just as well as any other user. 

"Yeah, but this isn't ordinary shit you can buy on the street. This stuff is imported."

"Maybe I don't want any imported shit? How do I know the stuff is even safe if it's not from around here?"

Plague just laughed. "You have a better chance of getting laced shit from around here than from some other places. Look... the shit is four hundred for a half quarter. This isn't your regular, everyday, generic white. This stuff is special. It's for occasions. It's like the dessert of powders."

"Okay..." I said skeptically, pulling out a wad of twenties and beginning to count them out.

"Now, don't come back to me in a couple of days wanting more of this. You have to be careful with it. Save it up." Plague told me, handing over the bag after I pushed four hundred across the counter.

"It's not like I've never done coke before." I said.

"You've never done coke like this," He told me. "I get it from one guy, and I don't deal out with anybody else. I sell it myself to people that won't sell it for themselves. So keep this quiet. I don't want anybody calling me and asking for the same shit you got. Nobody knows that I have this."

I nodded warily. "Why don't you sell it for profit if it's so good?"

Plague scraped his fingers across the white counter, taking up a thin line that I had missed. He leaned over, holding a finger over his left nostril so he could snort the line with the right. When he stood back up, his eyes were watering blue as he wiped his irritated nose.

"Because I'm in love with it."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plague is Zayn, obviously.

I left Plague's apartment, my hand in my pocket squeezing the bag of powder he had just finished selling me. I was a little disappointed that I had let him sell me a half quarter for four hundred dollars when I could have got double for the same price from Tabs. But Tabs wasn't around anymore and I truly felt bad for him. I had no experience dealing, but I knew there was nothing worse than having to leave your city because of the cops being onto you. If the cops were after one, they were after them all. The dealers in East Village were all associated in some way and if you found one, there was a nice fat chance that the rest of them could be found too. Simply the contacts on a dealer's phone could be a database of crime in process. I sighed as I left the apartment building and circled to find my car, luckily untouched and ready to be driven home.

When I was settled in my front seat, I pulled out the clear plastic bag and looked at the sparkling powder. I looked around, out all of the windows and as far as my eyes could see before I opened up the seal and stuck my finger in to scrape a little off the side. I sniffed the substance a bit before popping my finger in my mouth to rub it over my gums. The numbness kicked in almost immediately, the taste was pristine and pure. I was getting truly excited.

I drove home, making sure to stop at every light and sign, maintaining the speed limit so as to not have any reason to be pulled over. It was always a fear of mine to be pulled over with a pocket full of coke. I could just imagine it, the cop coming up to my window, asking me to get out so he could frisk me and tell me to empty my pockets. I didn't know if I'd run or what. Luckily I made it home without even seeing a police cruiser, strange in those parts of town.

Living in New York, you had to have the right stuff to live on the streets. I used to socialize with a group of gangsters back in high school. These kids were mixed races, some black, some white. All of them were born out of wedlock to single mother's that had also lived their lives on the street. I always thought of them as a diseased group of corrupted teenagers that had no desire to do anything but have a good time. And the way to have the best time was to drink and do drugs.

I had to admit it, I did always have the best times living in East Village as a kid.

I'd returned to the safety of my apartment, happy to be home and so close to the moment where I could relax and let the power of chemical substance change me. I locked the door and didn't even bother kicking my shoes off. I went over to my couch and carefully dumped the bag out onto the coffee table, setting the empty square plastic baggy at the corner before retrieving my expired library card from the little compartment underneath of the table. I had everything I needed in my coffee table. From extra bags to blackened spoons, cut pen tubes, straws, razor blades and cards for crushing. Whatever I needed to snort anything in the comfiest spot in my home.

I separated the powder into two piles. One of the piles I scraped back into the bag for safe keeping. Just the glint and crispness of the drug was making me quiver with anticipation. I had been awaiting the time I could rail some real good white since the moment I woke up, before I had even considered calling Tabs. Usually I awoke because of how hard I shook at night. And after my eyes were open, I knew that day I would have to find some powder. And today I was lucky to score some premium shit.

Arranging the lines into perfectly shaped rails was always my favorite part of the process. I had gotten good at it after my many months of using cocaine recreationally. All I had to do was drag the edge of a new razor onto it's side, pressing down on the glass to make sure none of the little white particles slipped through. I did it to the opposite side afterwards and then the two ends. After that, I repeated the motions again until it was about five inches long and three millimeters wide, symmetrical and all the same thickness from end to end.

The pen I used to draw up all the powder into my right nostril with came from my bank. I usually stole their pens specifically for that reason. Not only for drug usage, but because it reminded me to pay my rent. But after that coke had settled inside of me, dripped down the back of my throat and dissolved, my heart started beating and I felt like my eyes were shifting a million miles an hour. It was only my first line and already the rush was powerful enough to last a little while before I scraped up another line.

Usually when I did coke, I liked to get up and clean. Since I was normally alone in my small apartment, I needed an outlet to expel the energy from the rush. I wanted to talk and run and sing and jump all at once. But instead of doing all those things I stood up and went to work, cleaning each room spotlessly and very fast. It usually took me under twenty minutes to wash every dish in the sink, sweep the kitchen floor, vacuum the carpet, gather my dirty laundry, make the bed and wipe down the windows.

I knew I'd convinced myself coke was good for me because of this. Always my apartment was neat and smelling nice. The white was white, the drawers were packed nicely and my kitchen was well organized. I even found time to dust every surface. My television stand never collected any dust. Though sometimes, I felt like sketchbag after going on a cleaning tangent so I wouldn't do it again for a while. 

When I was on coke, I didn't think the way I normally did. I mean I thought, but the things flowing through my mind weren't what would usually be there. I looked at things and liked them, fucking really liked them. I was satisfied with my surroundings and felt like nothing bad could ever seep it's way under the cracks of the doors. The windows would hold strong to anything trying to get in. I was safe as the chemicals entered my system and wreaked havoc on my body.

The coke Plague had sold me was unlike any other that I had ever tried before. The rush was so sudden and so hard hitting that I had to lay down and take long deep breaths. I could feel my heart beating out of time almost immediately after ingesting the two lines. It was battering inside of me like a caged bird. Fuck, I might have been having a heart attack. I rose my hand to feel my forehead and noticed it was covered with sweat. I got hot really fast and decided to get out of my clothes as soon as possible. I flung off my shirt and wiggled out of my pants, but my temperature continued to rise until my cheeks burned red. I took off my boxers and curled up on the couch, begging to come back down, at least a little bit.

The world went blank for the longest moment in time. I held onto my legs as I rocked on my couch naked, regretting and silently begging that I didn't die. My breath was deep, hyper and full of blips where I'd either choked or just couldn't feel my throat. I closed my eyes and curled into myself, the drumming of my heart finally beginning to dwindle just a little bit. Something was definitely wrong with that shit Plague sold me.

I felt as though I would never open my eyes again. I didn't want to see any light. If I looked at the whites of the walls, they would get closer, and soon I wouldn't be able to see anything but the blinding florescent absence. But, as if by sudden impulse, I took a quick peak just to make sure I wasn't dying and saw that my apartment was normal. Nothing was getting closer. My heart stopped beating so fast and I'd cooled down. Now I was just a tripped out cokehead curled up naked on his couch. Maybe two lines was too much.

I felt stupid for having not heeded Plague's warning. It was true. That powder was something else. I should have listened to him. He was the one who bought the shit and snorted it everyday. He was the dealer, I was the customer. Stupid, stupid.

After the effects wore off, I could not come to grips with the trip I'd had. I hadn't went anywhere like that on coke since I first started. Fuck, Plague knew his shit. He definitely was not joking when he told me to take it easy on the stuff. I had to laugh about it, the way I'd tore off my clothes so quickly and felt as though the world were going to collapse into itself, leaving just me, alone, with no clothes on. My irregular heartbeat the only thing I could hear forever and ever. Trapped inside a white coma. Fuck, I couldn't deal with that. No double lines from then on.

My clothes needed to be put back on first, and then I put the bag, the razor and the pen back into the compartment in the coffee table after I felt adequate to move. Before I left to make myself something to eat, I stared the table down. I knew I was going to be coming back for more at least once for the rest of the night. Maybe not for another hit like I'd just come out of. Probably just a small line for comfort.

In the kitchen, I made myself some scrambled eggs but found myself feeling a little too squeamish to finish them. I took maybe four bites before I decided I couldn't handle having anything in my stomach. That wasn't healthy. I knew that. Normally, I wouldn't waste food, but I scraped the plate into the garbage anyway. Maybe I could eat in the morning after my body processed all those chemicals and finally neutralized them while I slept.

But I didn't sleep that night.

At eight o'clock I switched on the TV and flipped through channels until I found something mildly interesting. Cops. I watched it, feeling like the epitome of a joke. And after I'd silently contemplated, I felt more and more like I was a weak punch line. One you would laugh at but not for the right reason.

I was twenty five, living in an apartment by myself. I never had anybody calling me to say hello. Nobody coming over to hang out for a while. Shit, I even snorted coke by myself. I had not a soul to confide in, even if there wasn't much for me to confide. If I overdosed on some sort of drug one day, nobody would fucking know what had happened to me. Hell, my dead corpse would probably rot on the couch for a good couple of weeks before anybody found out what had happened. I would be a blue faced body before anyone remembered Liam Payne. Everyone had let me go, right after they'd realized I'd never been holding onto them. Maybe I wasn't good with people. Or people might not have been good with me. I didn't know because it never mattered. People around you were disposable anyway. My mother was disposable, Tabs was disposable. Fuck, even I was disposable. Clearly, because I was always alone.

Either way I looked at it, this all boiled down to drugs. I would be lying if I said I didn't hate drugs. I would also be lying if I said I didn't love them. Drugs were my downfall, my up bringing. They were my heaven and hell to bear on my back forever. When I wanted to live, I turned to drugs in order to die. To slip away. To reappear. To become one with myself and also to escape from my own thoughts.

Bit by bit, I knew I was wasting away. I already knew it, so why try to stop it? I was a man addicted. I couldn't and never would deny that. So I chopped up another line and so went my night. The hours bled into each other, I was still alone on the couch. Cops was over, but a new crime show was on. The criminals were trafficking mass quantities of illegal explosives and also pound upon pound of cocaine. A homemade black market was what these guys had. 

I only had my half quarter bag, a razor and a pen tube. And by midnight, the eight-ball I'd started off with, was now a refined amount that looked like a few pinches of baking soda. I could not believe what my eyes saw as I stared down at the bag and seeing how at one time, it had looked so full and now, it was practically nothing. Sure, I was tripping. Gums were numb, heart rate was through the roof and I could not look around without being amazed by my simple surroundings, but I knew the feeling was only temporary. I knew in about twenty minutes all of the feeling would be gone and I would reduce myself once again, and take up that last little bit that remained.

Fuck, this was a turning point, I thought. This was me out of control. I could have sat there, looking as calm as I wanted, but inside I was fucking gone. Any sort of self control I'd once had was non-existent now. I could tell myself this was a phase. I would move on and probably start smoking pot again, but a lie couldn't really be a lie if you already knew it's true nature. This was a joke. A stupid one that had gotten way out of hand.

I buried my face in my hands. I was prepared to think of some way I could go so that my want for coke was somewhat forgotten, but I could only smile and laugh. Just smile and laugh. The coke inside me was just smiling and laughing. I had gotten passed the point of drips. Those tangy bitter wads of snot and the coke that stuck to the inside of your nose sliding down the back of your throat, coating it sour and not at all sweet. The shit had kicked in only a minute after I'd snorted the line into my nose. It was too potent.

Fuck, whatever. I railed the last of it on the spot just like I knew I would. An eighth of an ounce of coke, gone in one night. Four hundred dollars spent on feeling like a piece of shit, existing, rotting, tripping. I had to ask myself if it was a good investment. Sure, it was a nice change from the normal stuff I'd usually buy. When I thought of the four in front of two zeros, it was all a joke to me. A huge joke. Tabs being stalked by cops, that was some kind of fucking joke. Him giving me Plague's number was an even better joke. Me sniffing four hundred dollars through a pen tube. Now that was the kicker.

I laughed maniacally. The sound of my own deep voice resonated, bounced off every wall and corner and came back to me. All I could hear was me. No sound coming from the TV, until I noticed the rainbow scream blaring out of service. The buzzing technicolor became a little more prominent as my attention finally focused on something besides my own insane laughter. That's what it was. Insanity. 

The screen was suddenly gone. My voice, gone. Everything was going back to normal, and in a way I was thankful. Life came back into focus as the screen hummed and never moved. I could only take being in that substance induced fantasy world for so long before I felt like I'd never come back. I felt the waves of being so incomprehensibly high start to calm. And in my drug trip's wake, I found darkness. Or rather, darkness found me and I passed out wearing jeans, a shirt and a hoodie while sitting upright on my couch.

Can't say it was the first time.

-▲-

 

The next day when I woke up from a cadaver sleep, the torrent of chills hit me like a brick in the head. I'd gasped as consciousness came crashing back into me, looking like I had just broke water's surface from nearly drowning. The pounding of my temples was all I could hear and it was stifling.

The repercussions of a drug binge. I had felt them before in weaker doses, but this was unbearable for the longest ten minutes of my life and then showed me a slight sense of mercy before fading. Fuck, I knew it wasn't over yet. My withdrawals didn't act like that. I could almost count the seconds to go before the wave of nausea came over. That was when I would spend a couple of hours in the bathroom throwing up every ounce of liquid inside of me. And when my stomach was empty, blood would come up. Sometimes just spit with hints of crimson, and sometimes all I could taste was the tangy metal essence of my own blood. I would hang my head in the toilet, vomit until I hoped it was over, and then laid back down until another hacking fit racked through my body.

The feeling of sickness and withdrawals was a painful process. Your head felt swollen, bloated with agony and thoughts of how much you hated your own fucking self for ever allowing this to happen. That was me. I hated myself as I rolled around on the cold bathroom floor, begging to die, wishing that I had overdosed or something. Anything that wasn't that pain. My organs pumped acid through me, processing all of the deadly chemicals I'd ingested the night before. They were all writhing in protest and making it so movement was nearly impossible. My stomach felt rotted out, sore and the swirling of fluid made a horrible chill ricochet up my throat to tighten on my gag reflex.

Throwing up was, truthfully, the best part of a vengeful morning, however disgusting it may seem. Because after I'd established myself as completely void of any inner substance, I could pull myself on shaking knees, to my feet and then eventually make my way out of the bathroom. If the dizziness was mild enough, I could even make it to the kitchen to make some coffee. It didn't have the effect of any drug, but it did help me relax.

I looked at myself in the mirror before leaving the bathroom. My body was large, but I felt so small and empty. Strength I might have had at one point meant nothing anymore. I had become a slave to my addiction and that had stripped me down to a sad and lonely shell that needed to be filled up with synthetic emotions in order to feel something besides himself. Yes, this was me now, and I accepted that.

I thought about yesterday as I waited for my coffee. Yesterday was a huge turning point in my life and I couldn't help but feel that I had been abandoned without warning. Tabs was gone. The only person I ever looked forward to seeing, even if it was for the wrong reasons. I thought about Plague and meeting him. His acceptable apartment in the middle of a run down region of East Village. I thought about the contents of his freezer and wondered how he managed to have himself under control when all those thousands of dollars of drugs were just sitting there, practically asking to be consumed. The guy must have had his balls tied in a knot. But then again, he probably had his own personal supply. The guy was probably living it up, not moaning and feeling like shit the way I was.

I was lost between sitting at home all day, drinking cup after cup of coffee to replace the speedy feeling of the coke and wanting to call Plague up again to get some more. Not the same shit as last night. Definitely not. Waking up to feeling dead was not something I could do again, at least for a little while.

I went to shower, but first found myself mesmerized by my own reflection again. My eyes looked sleepy and I'd almost forgotten about the colorful tattoos on my body since they had become an additional part of me. When I looked at myself, I still saw the same person I was when I was growing up. A kid that was in a baseball league. A kid who liked their mom no matter how many strange men she brought home with her, even if the kids at school called her a slut and a whore and a home wrecker. A kid that found out his favorite brand of beer was Guinness at fifteen. Now I was just a kid living by himself with a knack for just getting by. Barely able to survive.

My shower was cold and I hardly moved except to wash my hair. It was getting longer. About an inch and a half off my head when I usually kept it shortened to the roots. I looked down my body and noticed my pubic hair was starting to get longer since the last time I'd trimmed it too. I took that as a sign that I was letting myself go. I used to be so adamant about keeping myself clean shaven and groomed. I loved the feeling of soapy water cascading down my body. It used to be relaxing and soothing, but now all it had become was a way to rid myself of the unavoidable filth that was married to a drug problem.

Fuck, I fucking hated these feelings. I got angry after my shower, staring into my own lifeless eyes for a stupid fucking answer that would never come. The answer to my problems. The answer to my comfortless and solitary life. I hated the roller coaster of emotion, I wanted to get off. I itched to speak and have somebody listen. I itched to die or just disappear. But most of all, I itched for cocaine, contins, ketamine. Something that would take me away for a couple of hours.

I put on some clothes when I went to my room. A pair of boxers, some blue jeans and a sleeveless shirt of some kind. I never told myself prior to getting ready, but I was going to plague's place to pick up some more white. Or maybe something cheaper that would give me a better buzz and no unwanted after effects.

Before I left, I gave Plague a call. I was still nervous about him, because I didn't know him well enough to assure myself that he wouldn't rip me off. A lot of dealers liked to take people's money and peace right the fuck out without paying up. It hadn't happened to me, but Tabs had told me stories of people getting shot because of drug deals gone wrong. People were literally dying for illegal substances around here, putting their lives on the line just to get that perfect buzz. I couldn't help but feel like I was doing the same when Plague answered.

"Hello." He said, voice groggy and slow.

"Hey dude, it's Liam."

There was some silence. "Uh, Liam?"

"The guy you sold an eight-ball to for four hundred?" I reminded him.

"Oh yeah. Yeah I remember now. What's up?"

"I need some more white." I told him, fearing something about the next silent moment that followed.

Plague started to laugh under his breath. "You finished that shit already?"

"Yeah." 

"Jesus, are you feeling alright?" He asked.

I debated telling him about my rough morning. I wanted to tell him that the first two lines I railed made me burn up and think that I was going to die of a stroke. I wanted to tell him about the morning I spent with my head in the toilet. But I wouldn't tell him. He didn't need to know about how I handled that ridiculous coke he'd sold me. So I lied to him.

"Yeah I'm good." I told him.

"Okay, well you know where I am. Eight knocks."

"Eight knocks?"

"Yeah. Eight. So I know that it's you." Plague said.

"Oh... okay then."

The line went dead and I was left in silence once more. This time, I was quite eager to go to Plague's apartment and pick up some more coke. The thought of interacting with somebody and getting out of my apartment was exciting so I wasted no time and left right after putting my shoes on and locking the door behind me. 

On the way to Plague's building, I stopped at gas station to fill up my car and take some money out of my bank account. I waited patiently in front of the ATM as it processed my request to withdraw two hundred dollars. Not all of it was going to Plague though. I was going to use some for gas and food for the rest of the week, even before I went back to my apartment where I would inevitably get too high to go out again. I vowed that I would get groceries and not put it off. After all, coffee wasn't very filling and I was starting to get jittery from all the caffeine. 

The receipt that the machine spit out after I pocketed my money told me I had a hundred and fifty dollars left in the bank. This confused me, because I could have sworn I had at least another four hundred to last me until it was all gone. There wasn't even an 'until then'. This was the last of my money. I had no job to put more money in that account, and I wasn't getting help from anyone. No cheques courtesy of the American tax payers made it's way into my hands. At least I could be proud of that. But this was serious. I had to start looking for a job soon or else stop buying so much cocaine. But both of those ultimatums were difficult. With a simple background check, an employer would look at me and wonder what the fuck I was on. I hadn't ever kept a job longer than a couple months, and I usually left on bad terms. And quitting coke was just as easy as convincing a potential employer that I was good enough for a position.

I wasn't fucking good for anything.

I kept telling myself this as I drove into the parking lot behind Plague's building. I went in, this time disregarding the dank surroundings, ignoring the torture cage of an elevator and took the stairs two at a time until I reached the top floor. There were about ten or so doors on the top floor and Plague's was the very last, next to a broken window that let in a cold breeze from the city streets. There were jagged shards that formed a frame around the sill, looking sharp enough to separate skin from bone. I wondered why no one had bothered to fix it.

I knocked on Plague's door a total of eight times, and was surprised when he pulled the door open on the last knock. He gestured for me to come inside so I did wordlessly. 

Plague was dressed in almost the exact same thing he was the day I had first met him. Curiously tight black pants, grey socks and no shirt. But this time, he had a dog tag necklace hanging around his neck. The tags tapped the center of his chest with each stride he took on his long legs. But he wasn't awkward like most people his stature. He knew how to carry himself like a proud creature. But was he really all that proud? I mean, with a name like 'Plague', there must have been something dark and sinister about him. He had a chest, neck and arms full of tattoos and a piercing in his face. His hair was unnaturally black, most likely dyed. Plague wasn't like any of the dealers on the streets. He wasn't a white guy trying to act black. I don't know why that bothered me so much, but it did.

"What do you need this time? Hydrochloride? China White? Pop Rocks?"

I looked at Plague questioningly, like he was a bizarre piece of art. "What?"

"What are you looking for dude?" He asked, as he sat down on the couch.

"Just some white. What the fuck is Pop Rocks?" I asked.

Plague began to laugh. "Crack rocks that you heat up on a spoon and it crackles... like Pop Rocks."

I had to give him a look of confusion and decline politely on the crack. I had never done crack before, and only for one reason. I heard that the withdrawals were ten times worse than regular coke and forty times more addictive. People killed other people for crack. People died their first times doing crack. I wanted to fade away, not keel over and convulse into my painful death.

"I understand, crack is... crack is just fucked right up" Plague said when I sat down beside him on the couch.

"Do you sell it?" I asked.

Plague smirked. "So you are interested."

I shook my head. "Fuck no."

"Then why ask?" 

"Why not? If I'm going to be buying off you, I want to know what my chances of being cut off are."

Plague smirked again. "Slim to fucking none bro."

I questioned him silently. He already knew my pending question. "I'm Plague, and even if you haven't heard of me already, you already know I have everything. The 'boys' that slang their shit on the streets, who the fuck do you think they got their shit from? And if I'm handling that much blow and that much weed and that much tar, I obviously have a game plan."

I blinked profusely and looked away, smiling as though I didn't believe him. "Shit, that was a little too much for me to handle."

"Listen man, I'm not going to fuck you over. So you can get that thought of your fucking meaty head."

"So how do you do it then? You live in a place crawling with pigs, and you haven't gotten figured out yet?" I asked him.

Plague shook his head, looking onto his coffee table at his reflection. "Nope. I've got connections. And not to sound like a fucking fancy shit head, but I have information on hand at all times. All hours of the night. Just a phone call away." 

I had to admit, the dude was sly. I believed him when he said he had connections. All I had to do was take another look at that freezer to figure it out. Plague was probably running the streets as we sat their and talked. His drugs were being sold, his money being made and all he had to do was sit back in an apartment and take phone calls. I found an admiration for the guy in the way he had set himself up. His job was to do and sell drugs, nothing else but pure profit.

"Well I'm looking for some blow. But I don't want that zipped shit you sold me last time."

Plague nodded as he got off the couch and made his way over to the freezer. "Too much to handle eh?"

"I snorted two lines and was higher than a fucking Rasta on four twenty." I quipped, making Plague laugh as he pulled out a sealed bag of white rocks. He shut the fridge and brought the bag back over before he sat down.

I eyed the bag of blow sitting there in front of me. My heart was palpitating just seeing those fine crystals. I wanted them so badly.

"Alright, this shit right here is pretty good. It won't give you a nosebleed like that other shit, promise. But it's pretty good quality blow. Hundred and thirty for an eight-ball."

For some reason, any price for coke was a bad one. Now that I knew I was running low on money, I was skeptical about everything I bought. I fucking hated that coke was so expensive for such small amounts. It really wasn't fair.

"Or, I can sell you a quarter ounce for two hundred, saves you like sixty bucks and you get twice as much."

I nodded. "Hook it up with the quarter then."

Plague nodded, his long, unruly hair following his motion. He leaned over the coffee table and cut off a couple pieces from the sparkling rock. It was more than what I bought off of him before, but I could tell the purity wasn't as good. There was a faint yellow tinge to the rock, whereas the stuff from before was porcelain white.

"I'll hook you up for cheaper if you keep buying off me. Like eights for a hundred, whenever you need it. But I'm fucking warning you now, if you're over here every fucking day asking me for white, eventually I'm going to have to say no."

My eyebrows twitched in question. "Why?"

"Because," Plague began. "Sometimes I have to sell in quantity, and if I don't have enough then I'll lose the sale. And selling in quantity is what makes me my money. It gives me my smokables, matchables and my personal stash. The shit I don't have to sell. Because like everybody else, I like to rail some lines once in a while."

"Cokes your favorite too then?"

Plague looked down at the pile he's scraped up for me and smiled lovingly as though it were his child. "Yeah. The shit keeps me buzzin' alright."

I smiled, feeling that our views were mutual. "I love the shit too, even though it's costing me a fortune."

"It's a fucking plague, that's what it is. A plague with no cure."

We looked at each other for a split second. "It never goes away, so all you have left to do is become it's bitch. Simple as that."

I watched Plague, taking in his every movement. I wondered what he meant when he said coke was a plague with no cure. And if coke was his favorite, then maybe that's where his name was derived from. I wouldn't ask, but that was my new explanation for the strange street name of his.

Plague tapped the card he used to scrape lines against the table. He had cut me up a pile and even busted the chunks up for me. He sat back after tossing the card onto the table.

"So, you wanna snort some lines with me?" Plague asked after he was up and looking into his canister of bags for one that would fit my count.

I looked down at cuts and then back up at him. "I'll match you of course, line for line."

Was I really paying to do drugs with Plague? I asked myself this and was highly considering telling him to fuck off, until he tossed another bag on the table before me. This one was a regular clear plastic sandwich bag, but it was nearly full. The letter 'P' was printed on it in black marker.

"That's my stash."

I was practically drooling over that fat sack of blow. Fuck, of course I said yes after that.


End file.
